Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

First time the festival has made the jump to a 3 day fest. They are expecting to draw 35,000 + people/ day. I went last year and while I had fun, the crowd was awful, there was absolutely nothing to do when you didn't want to see a band play, and the talent was spread pretty thin over the 4 stages. They have moved the grounds to a larger field (Brennan Park) and will apparently also feature the use of Loggersports Stadium (yes, this is BC. We have a "stadium" dedicated to logging sports, although the word "stadium" may be a bit misleading in terms of its size).

Anyways, here is the line-up:

Originally Posted by bmack86

And it's been long established that Chris hates fun.

Originally Posted by Hatinisbad

I took my niece this year and it was her first Coachella. It was so fun to see it through her eyes. She thought it felt like a magical scene from Shreck. The one where all the fairy tale creatures meet for the first time in Shreck's swamp.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

I'm not gonna be in the country for this fest, but if I was, I would honestly go just for Boys Noize and Danny Brown.

Originally Posted by bmack86

And it's been long established that Chris hates fun.

Originally Posted by Hatinisbad

I took my niece this year and it was her first Coachella. It was so fun to see it through her eyes. She thought it felt like a magical scene from Shreck. The one where all the fairy tale creatures meet for the first time in Shreck's swamp.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

I don't really see how that makes much of a difference. At pretty much every music festival you have hundreds of dollars hanging off your wrist. I don't think they will accept payment from a cut wristband and it probably isn't very hard to get a new one should that happen.

It's an interesting idea and in reality it's probably a lot easier to steal a wallet than a wristband.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

My sister, who lives in Squamish, says all the locals are pissed about the size and scope of the fest and it's impact on the community that weekend - noise, garbage, partying etc. Many are planning to camp away from town or leave town to get away from it.

Originally Posted by M Sparks

It's all riding on this. You've got big dreams to ride to the top of the Flash Mob world. Well internet fame costs. And right now is when you start paying for it...in sweat.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

Originally Posted by ThatGirl

My sister, who lives in Squamish, says all the locals are pissed about the size and scope of the fest and it's impact on the community that weekend - noise, garbage, partying etc. Many are planning to camp away from town or leave town to get away from it.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

Originally Posted by ThatGirl

My sister, who lives in Squamish, says all the locals are pissed about the size and scope of the fest and it's impact on the community that weekend - noise, garbage, partying etc. Many are planning to camp away from town or leave town to get away from it.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

Originally Posted by ThatGirl

My sister, who lives in Squamish, says all the locals are pissed about the size and scope of the fest and it's impact on the community that weekend - noise, garbage, partying etc. Many are planning to camp away from town or leave town to get away from it.

They seem to not be motivated by the extra money they could make, sucks for them.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

Well the presale sold out in less than a day. No idea how many that was, but it's something.

It seems that their strategy of booking towards Canadians who have never been to a festival might actually be working, much to my dismay.

Fixed

Originally Posted by RotationSlimWang

Hey Betty, how about I take you out some time, we have a nice dinner, some drinks, make fun of some darkies, then I beat the shit out of you on the Sunset Strip and we fuck behind the Whisky. Sound like a plan?

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

Tier 1 is sold out so tickets are now $352 after fees (without camping!).

I have no clue how many that was, but I'd say this is going to be a pretty well attended festival if this is any indication. Most likely a bunch of festival virgins who are only there to see a couple bands.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

Single day tickets for $149 + fees onsale Feb 28th.

Daily breakdown of bands(might be useful to some OSL fans)

Friday, August 8
Bruno Mars
Foster the People
Serena Ryder
Lykke Li
The Head and the Heart
Walk off the Earth
Boys Noize
Mayer Hawthorne
Felix Cartel
The Zolas
July Talk
Anna Lunoe
Head of the Herd
Louise Burns
The Courtneys
City Real
Aidan Knight

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

Fixed the days - I had to reformat all the names from the LN email. Single day tix were $89+SC in 2013 and full passes were $149. LN really have to make their $12 million back and try to give Pemberton cold feet.

Friday, August 8
Bruno Mars
Foster the People
Serena Ryder
Lykke Li
The Head and the Heart
Walk off the Earth
Boys Noize
Mayer Hawthorne
Felix Cartel
The Zolas
July Talk
Anna Lunoe
Head of the Herd
Louise Burns
The Courtneys
City Real
Aidan Knight

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

Well, still a good attendance all things considered. I've heard that there have been some issues with the wristbands, but overall seems to be running smoothly. I suppose we'll have to wait for Monday to actually get a clear idea of people's opinions of the whole thing, though.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

My brain is pretty mush right now so bare with me if this is a bit rambling. That was hands down the worst festival experience I have ever had in 20ish camping music festivals.

The crowds were some of the worst people ever. There seemed to be a lot of single day people because crowd size seemed to vary quite a bit day to day. Arcade Fire felt like it had the smallest crowd of the 3 headliners, though it was tough to tell as I was way further up for Arcade Fire, where at Bruno Mars I walked by for 2 minutes (and hated it) and there was no way I was going to tolerate the amount of assholes that were there for Eminem, so I watched from way far back. The vibe seemed to change each day too in the festival, with Saturday being the best, Sunday the worst. The amount of people that were there for just one or two things was pretty crazy and they seemed like they didn't know what to do for the other 8 hours of the day when they one huge act wasn't on.

The layout was horrible. It was pretty similar to last year except the put the new main stage where the old camping was. I mapped it out on google beforehand and it was almost 1 kilometer in a straight line from the one stage to the other. Walking between the 2 stages was a disaster. The site was pretty big, but there were bottlenecks everywhere. They turned dusty pretty quick, which has never been an issue here before. All in all it took roughly 15-20 minutes to get between the two stages and a lung full of dust.

I did the crazy expensive VIP camping because my friend came from England to hang out with all the people she met at Squamish a couple years ago, which was planned before the lineup came out. I gotta admit, they did an amazing job on that. We were allowed to drive our cars in, unload our stuff and park them a 5 minute walk away. There were air conditioned flush toilets and shower trailers that almost never had a line. There was a huge VIP lounge right beside camp that had couches, tents to keep you cool in the heat, a DJ at night and a bar, however we always just brought our own beers in there and they didn't really seem to mind. They delivered free ice to us in the mornings. I heard regular camping was a total mess, but I haven't seen any pictures.

The cashless wristband thing seemed to work pretty well. I didn't use it since my friend loaded hers with cash so I just paid her if I wanted something. Contrary to what the website said there were stands that accepted cash, but not very many. Overall the food options were really good.

The sound at everything but the main stage was well done, and the main stage was decent.

They seemed to get the traffic sorted better by having people check in using a much larger lot than they had last year.

It was still a whole bunch of fun because it's still a music festival, but after having possibly my best music festival experience ever at Pemberton, the flaws of this years version of Squamish were really obvious.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

I went last year and even with no Eminem/ Bruno Mars (instead Vampire Weekend and QOTSA headlined), in my opinion, it was the worst crowd I have ever had to deal with in my entire life, so I am not surprised whatsoever that this year was worse.

Originally Posted by bmack86

And it's been long established that Chris hates fun.

Originally Posted by Hatinisbad

I took my niece this year and it was her first Coachella. It was so fun to see it through her eyes. She thought it felt like a magical scene from Shreck. The one where all the fairy tale creatures meet for the first time in Shreck's swamp.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

I was there last year too. While the crowds weren't the best, they were still way better than this year. It also didn't bother me as much because tickets were something like $110, not. $350 like this year. I easily spent twice as much this year and probably had half as much fun. Unless they resurect the 2 fallen Beatles next year for a one time only performance, I won't be going back to this festival any time soon.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

I didn't have much of an issue with last years crowd, but it sucks to hear that it seemed to get so much worse this time around. I imagine I'll be sticking with Pemberton in 2015, provided that they actually put on a second year.

Re: Squamish Valley Music Festival August 8-10, 2014

I think it's somewhat lineup dependent. There were at least an extra 5000 people there on Sunday, and I'm betting 90% of them were there for Eminem and pretty much only Eminem. I don't have much against Eminem, and he put on a great show, but man, some of his fans are the WORST people.

Regardless of the lineup, I'll be spending my August festival dollars elsewhere next year. A few friends just got back from Shambala and said it was an absolutely amazing time. Even though dance music all day doesn't sound like my cup of tea, I'll still take my chances on hanging around the campground with really nice people and seeing a couple sets a day over the experience I had at Squamish this go around.